Happy Pumpkins for Halloween

Browse our gallery of grinning happy pumpkin faces and gather some free downloadable pumpkin patterns for Halloween. With easy pumpkin carving ideas and free pumpkin carving patterns, you can find the pick of the patch for your family. Make a happy, smiling jack-o'-lantern face or make your kids smile with a funny pumpkin.

Pug Pumpkin

We love this adorable pugkin! You'll need one large pumpkin for the head, two small white pumpkins painted with black pupils for eyes, and two gourds for the ears. To attach the eyes and ears, make holes in each with a hammer and nail and use pieces of a wire hanger to secure them. Paint a leftover piece of pumpkin red for the tongue.

Humpty Dumpty Pumpkin

Perch this nursery rhyme-inspired pumpkin on a retaining wall or your front step. Although all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again, you can assemble this smiling pumpkin in no time.

Grinning Pumpkins

These creepy smiling pumpkins are great for people on a budget – rather than splurge on huge pumpkins, buy several small sugar pumpkins for your kids to paint. To keep the carving to a minimum, cut just the mouths and paint on the eyes and other features. For extra depth, paint the inside of the mouths dark brown.

Vegetable-Adorned Pumpkin Duo

Floral shops and supermarket aisles are chock-full of colorful, whimsical facial and hair ideas for your jack-o'-lantern friends: Here, we used cucumber slices for eyes, carved potatoes for ears, and ferns for feathery strands of hair. Creating this happy pumpkin couple is easy: Cut off the tops of pumpkins or drill holes to tuck in flowers and branches. Attach other accents with pins, toothpicks, or glue.

Happy Halloween Jack-o'-Lanterns

Celebrate Halloween with this gang of happy jack-o'-lantern faces. Use the free pumpkin carving patterns to carve smiling eyes and wide grins. Then shape scrapbooking paper into cones, creating a variety of tall and short hats. Use tape to secure the paper in its cone shape. Cut out an assortment of circles from patterned paper and glue them to the hats for added flair. Trim some of the hat edges with paper fringe. Hot-glue the hats to the tops of the pumpkins.

Veggie Pumpkins

It’s time to let your kids play with their veggies! Cut a hole in the top of your pumpkin, then add leafy greens for funky hair. Halved peppers make great noses and mouths, green beans work as eyebrows, and cucumber slices stuck in apple corer-cut holes make great eyes.

Goofy Group of Pumpkins

These funny pumpkins pack plenty of personality by playing up their flaws, so don't disregard that unusually shaped or scarred pumpkin. Arrange the carving pattern in a way that enhances a pumpkin's imperfections.

Mustache Pumpkin

We mustache you a question: How cute is this dapper fellow?! Make him by cutting out a mustache shape from thick cardboard. Use hot glue to attach black licorice as the hair, cutting down the pieces as needed. Attach it to the pumpkin with pins.

The Pumpkin King

Invite pumpkin royalty to your front door with this regally crowned jack-o'-lantern. Download the free pumpkin carving patterns and you're on your way to having this honored guest preside over your home.

Smiling Pumpkin

Create a goofy grin on your pumpkin by using an apple corer to punch perfectly round circles. For more easy pumpkin carving ideas, try using the punched plugs for additional features; here, the white nose is a plug from a white pumpkin. Scrape just the skin away around the punched "pupils" to create the eyes.

Pumpkin Dog

Let this happy pumpkin greet visitors with a tail wag. For the dog head and body, place a large elongated pumpkin on its side and stand a smaller pumpkin upright next to it. Lay two squash on each side of the large pumpkin for back legs and two small pumpkin squash in front of the head for paws. Download our free face and ear shapes, and trace onto construction paper. Cut out the pieces and layer as shown in the photo to assemble the face and ear shapes; adhere with glue. Add a paper-chain tail to complete the pumpkin dog.

Pumpkin Cat

Start this smiling pumpkin kitty with a medium-size pumpkin set atop a larger pumpkin. Download our free patterns, cut out construction-paper features, and glue paper ears, nose, eyes, and mouth to the top pumpkin. Insert wire whiskers on each side of the nose, add a paper-chain tail, and place two small squash in front for the paws.

Glowing Guy

To give your happy pumpkin a spiky light-up hairdo, drill holes in the top of your pumpkin. (Choose a bit that’s slightly smaller than the light bulbs.) Push white holiday lights through the holes and place the rest of the light strand inside the pumpkin.

Hairy Pumpkins

These funny pumpkins are sure to delight your Halloween visitors! Start by selecting three flatter pumpkins and remove the stems. Use an old cap for one of them, braid thick lengths of yarn secured with ribbon for another, and cut out faux craft fur into "hair" for the third.